The 2008 Pulitzers tapped two other health-related series. One prize went to the Chicago Tribune, which also won in the investigative category, for exposing poor regulation of lead-laced toys and other children’s products. The other went to The Washington Post for its remarkable series on the mistreatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which earned the public service award.

The common denominator in all this Pulitzer-winning work, past and present, is bringing complex scientific stories to life in a way that had meaning for the reader, and being given adequate time and space to do so. Alas, those two things are in very short supply these days. Thankfully, Harmon’s genetics articles were generally given prominent display on the Times front page and jumped inside, often to a full one or two-page spread. Online, they were packaged with great graphics, videos of the people profiled, and commentary from the author.

In an era when newspapers struggle mightily for readers and revenues, these prestigious awards for serious health and science journalism carry more meaning than ever, especially for veteran science writers like Jon Franklin who worry about the survival of such journalism in the nation’s newsrooms. He won the first explanatory Pulitzer award in 1985 for his seven-part Baltimore Evening Sun series on molecular psychiatrists. Now a 66-year-old journalism professor at the University of Maryland, he sees a shift toward shallow celebrity-centered journalism, with little time and space for newspaper reporters to do more than log the news. “The number of staff science writers is diminishing so fast, and today most science writing is really rewriting press releases,” says Franklin.

So editors take note. If you want to take home one of journalism’s top honors, order your reporters out the newsroom and let them roam free in the wide-ranging terrain of science, health and the environment. They may bring back stories that people really care about.

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